Tarot Cards
One of the fragments of the ‘Burial of the Dead’
details a meeting with Madame Sosostris, a Tarot Card
reader, who reads the fortune of the persona that happens to be speaking at
that point of the poem. We would expect this to be significant for a number of
reasons:
Firstly, the motif of a prophet or visionary echoes
throughout the poem, most notably in the allusions to the Sibyl and Tiresias and indeed there is a strong reason to believe
that Eliot partly sees himself in this role as he seems to feel that he is one
of the few who can see and understand the corrupt and desolate state of the
world around him while most of us remain oblivious to it.
Secondly, once we have recognised that the world we
are living in is a
There are a number of partially unconvincing analyses
of the character of Madame Sosostris that focus on
the first three letters of her name (S.O.S.) or that it is possibly a parody of
Betrand Russell, one of the most brilliant
philosophers and mathematicians of the 20’s and one who had an affair with
Eliot’s wife Vivienne (Mrs. Equitone?).
Most of these I would ignore, however there is a
character called Madame Sesostris in a novel called ‘Crome Yelllow’ written by Aldous Huxley in 1921 and this is an allusion that does
seem to provide at least some interesting grounds for analysis. Madame Sesostris was also a fortune teller but in Huxley’s novel
she was a fraud, a man pretending to be a fortune teller in a village fair. I
feel that the idea of a fraudulent fortune teller works well on at least two
levels, firstly as a simple reflection of the corrupt times that we live in (as
Eliot himself writes a little later ‘you have to be so careful these days’) but
more significantly it may suggest that we have still not managed to properly
open our eyes to the state of the world around us. We are still misled by false
prophets and, if we continue to follow them, then we definitely will not be
able to make it out of the Wasteland. In this case Madame Sosostris
would contrast with the more reliable prophet Tiresias
that we meet later in the poem and who perhaps has a clearer understanding of
the state of the world we are living in. This could explain the unreliability
implied by she ‘had a bad cold’ and the fact that this seems to undermine the
claim that she was known to be ‘the wisest woman in
Regardless of all this, the most interesting thing
in this section is the cards that Eliot uses in the reading. Some are real and
some are invented but analysis of the symbolic role of these cards does seem to
carry a message. This message remains unclearly buried amidst the cards and
misleading hints and this is perhaps reflective once more of how we have not
yet clearly perceived the Waste Land or how we will have to work hard to find
our way out of the Wasteland in the same way that we will have to work to
decipher the message hidden in the cards.
The Drowned Phoenician Sailor |
This is not a card from the traditional tarot
deck but here it certainly seems to be foreshadowing Phlebas
the Phoenician who dies in ‘Death by Water’ later on in the poem … however we
must remember the thirst-quenching, revitalising and regenerative
connotations that water has in the Wasteland and so perhaps this ‘death’ is
not such a bad thing after all. Indeed, given that water also suggests
baptism, purification and rebirth and that the general mood and tone of
‘Death by Water’ is of a calm transformation and letting go of worldly and
material cares then we might in fact view this drowned sailor as Eliot’s
ultimate goal for us: a spiritual form of purification through which we learn
to let go of our material obsessions, our lusts and our vices in order to
make our way out of the Wasteland. |
Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks |
This is another invented card, however it is
thought that Eliot might have been referring to Da
Vinci’s painting ‘Our Lady of the Rocks’ a copy of which hangs in the Louvre
with a further copy hanging in the National Gallery. The authenticity of the
second painting is disputed but both show the same scene, that of a meeting
between Jesus and John the Baptist. In Christian mytho-theology
John the Baptist, 6 months older than Jesus, is seen as the immediate
forerunner of Christ, a messenger sent by God to prepare the way for the
messiah. Thus this would then continue the theme of prophecy that runs
through the text but Baptism is also obviously significant in itself as the
Baptist metaphor of using water to wash away sins so that people can be ‘born
again’ is a clear echo of the kind of spiritual, moral and cultural
revitalisation and rebirth that Eliot envisages as necessary to purify and
regenerate the Waste Land. |
The man with three staves |
This card
has at least two different readings: the first is that of exploring the unknown,
undertaking a journey or going in quest of new adventure where you leave
behind security and tackle something different. This has obvious echoes of
the spiritual journey that Eliot wants us to undertake as we leave behind the
comforting warmth of the forgetful snow that he mentions in the first stanza
of Burial of the Dead. The second reading is related to
foresight and leadership. The man stands perched atop a cliff looking out into
the distance. Perhaps this echoes Eliot’s sense that he is a visionary who
has a clear view of the world around us and is capable of leading us towards
the same realisation that he has had. |
The Wheel |
The wheel might firstly suggest the cyclicality
that recurs as a motif throughout the Wasteland: the cycles between the
seasons, between rain and drought and between a better past and the degraded
present. More importantly, the wheel also suggests a turning point. Perhaps
Eliot is trying to indicate that we also are at turning point; that we may be
at a position where we can begin to make it out of the Wasteland. |
The One Eyed Merchant and the Blank Card |
These are both invented cards. However, it is
possible that the merchant’s inability to see fully reflects our own
blindness to the |
The Hanged Man |
Despite its sinister sounding name this card
actually has many positive connotations. As the central figure is hanging
upside down this perhaps reflects the idea of a seeing things from a new
angle or perspective or perhaps overturning old priorities. One story behind
the card tells of how the character lost all of the coins from his pockets
whilst hanging upside down but, because of his new perspective on the world,
he viewed the coins as no more than shiny discs and was content to let them
fall. As such the card may also be a metaphor for letting go of our material
possessions and seeing money for what it really is. Ironically, while hanging
upside the main character is unable to act and this perhaps also reflects the
position that Eliot finds himself in: although he can see clearly the extent
of the desolation evident in the |